Steve Taylor: This Joker's Wild!

Picture this: the medieval castle in the midst of the darkest age of man.
Enter the court jester--he leaps, he sings, he dances, he laughs--and the
King is amused. But listen--behind the mask, underneath the music--listen to
what he says. He is not afraid to risk his life through the offense. His
art is the truth and his antics are the presentation of that truth--and in
his one shining moment on stage he reveals what no man in his day would
dare...

Enter the 1980's and Steve Taylor. Shuffle through your standard fare of
today's Gospel albums and you won't find many artists jumping on some of the
topics Taylor covers on his latest release, I Predict 1990.
Abortion clinic bombings ("I Blew Up The Clinic Real Good"), psychoanalysis
("Jung And The Restless"), humanist education ("Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel A
Lot Better") and the seduction of fame and power ("Svengali")--all are
"Taylor-ized" into one of this year's most provocative albums.

Just like the jester of old, Taylor isn't afraid to risk it all in an
effort to reveal the truth to his generation. Although 1987 seemed
to be a year of "retreat" in contemporary Christian music, with many artists
shying away from overtly controversial musical styles and lyrical content,
Taylor again, as the L.A. Times boldly proclaimed: breaks tradition with
a sledgehammer by stretching the boundaries of what's expected in a
Christian album. The criticisms of evangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and
David Wilkerson, who denounce the use of rock music in evangelism, aren't
worrying Taylor.

"People who listen to what I do probably aren't going to buy into that in
the first place, and people who believe what those men are saying probably
aren't too much into getting their minds opened or changed. There's a real
danger when people become so spiritually proud that they won't see any other
way of communicating the gospel other than the way that they themselves
communicate it."

Taylor believes an artist should be more concerned with his life
style than his musical style, and tries not to let criticism affect
what he's initially set out to do--that is, to use music and satire to
provoke the Church into action.

The trademark satire of Steve Taylor is, of course, the backbone of
I Predict 1990. Listeners are whisked from street corners to
psychiatrist couches, from college campuses to high rise business offices,
and there's even a stop at Jim Morrison's Grave. The settings, although
diverse, relate back to the basic theme which runs throughout the album.

"It wasn't really intentional at first, but we were listening to a
playback of "I Blew Up The Clinic Real Good" and there's a line in the song
that says 'Preacher on the corner, calling it a crime, says the end don't
justify the means anytime.' And my wife, Debbie, said to me, 'You know, if
there is one theme running through the whole album, it's that the end
doesn't justify the means.' Expediency is not what Jesus had in mind for
His followers. Right now, there's a lot of Christians that are going along
with the idea that it's okay to do things that are morally questionable as
long as the end result is good or as long as we're protecting American
interests or personal interests. We've certainly seen that theory espoused
in things these days, like the Iran Contra hearings. Yet, if our Jesus can
say without a doubt that there is a right and a wrong, then that
philosophy is the way to go."

Musically, I Predict features one of the hottest bands in
Christian music--Steve Taylor's own--Some Band. Production credits go to
Dave Perkins who has recently worked with several other Christian
heavyweights like Randy Stonehill on The Wild Frontier and Rick
Cua on Wear Your Colors as well as releasing his own critically
acclaimed solo album The Innocence in late '87. Did working
with Perkins and a "live" band create a departure from the Steve Taylor of
past albums?

"Using my band on this record really made a big difference in the sound.
The band has been playing together for a long time and not many bands
actually have the sum of players and playing abilities that this one has.
Each of the guys really knows their way around their instruments. That gave
the record cohesiveness and a personality that I don't think it would have
had if we had chosen to use studio musicians. Working with Dave Perkins
also added a lot to the record. We both had the same vision for what we
wanted the record to sound like and what we wanted it to say. We wanted it
to have a lot of emotional impact. That's probably part of the reason we
worked for over a year on the album. We wanted to get it right and not put
it out before it was done... Musically I suppose it's a logical progression
from the last studio record--built around the drums and bass. Its certainly
very much in a progressive rock vein, but of course, the themes to the songs
themselves dictate a lot. Doing a song like "Jim Morrison's Grave" seems to
lead to a certain musical intepretation. On the whole the album, I think,
has a lot more emotion to the songs and there's a lot more kick to the
arrangements."

The haunting "Harder to Believe Than Not To," the closing song on the
album, certainly bears testament to the strong emotional impact of I
Predict. Steve Taylor critics beware--there's more to chew on here
than a volume of doctrinal theses:

Are you sturdy enough to move to the front
Is it nods of approval or the truth that you want?
And if they call it a crutch, then you walk with pride
Your accusers have always been afraid to go outside
They shiver with doubts that were left unattended
Then they toss away the cloak that they should have mended
You know by now why the chosen are few
It's harder to believe than not to.

Taylor explains his inspiration for the song: "There's a writer of short
stories and novels from the South named Flannery O'Conner who wrote in the
'40's and '50's and then died quite young in the '60's. She was a
Christian, but a very rare writer in that she was both a Christian and a
popular writer. Her novels and stories were full of religious
imagery and extreme characters.

"Her literary friends in New York were very taken with her writing and
she was also very popular with the critics, but they couldn't understand how
she could buy into something that was as weird, in their minds, as
Christianity. And she writes in one of her letters to a friend that they
just don't understand the cost involved in Christianity and the cost
involved in being a follower of Jesus. It is not an easy road and it
requires a lot, probably more than we were initially willing to give.

"So I look at that song as a kind of correction of the preponderance of
many songs in Gospel music that dont necessarily paint an accurate picture
of the Christianity that involves a greater cost."

For the past five years Steve Taylor has been on the frontlines of
Christian music, venturing where few artists dare to tread. The clown, the
poet, the social commentator, the rocker--the mosaic that makes up Steve
Taylor continues to surprise, confront and wake up the Church to the truth
he's found in Jesus Christ.

And what does the man himself predict he'll be doing in 1990?

"1990? I'll probably be busking at a subway playing the accordian.

"You know, it's really hard for me to look past this record, because I
don't have any long term career visions in music, and I try not to approach
this from a career standpoint. It's because I don't want all the baggage
that comes along with looking at having a music career and I don't
particularly like the tendency that it has in basing your self-worth on
record sales and concert attendance. So I just like to take things one
project at a time. I don't look at God's will as something that He's
ordained where I sing songs. I think God's will is more concerned with
loving Him with all my heart and my soul and my mind, loving my neighbor as
myself and following His commandments. So that's why I really have a hard
time saying, 'God's called me as a music minister' or a singer or whatever--I
don't know what I'll be doing in a couple of years.

"I was a very good janitor. I did that before I started recording, so
I've always got that to fall back on..."